Warforged

Birth of the Warforged

Long before the Era of Man, the Gnomes dwelled deep beneath the earth, digging and tinkering with their tools and devices. While their kind is historically peaceful, there was a time where they found themselves at war with monstrous invaders in the Underdark. They called this The Only War as, for a time, it had been the only war they were ever involved in, and they had hoped to avoid any wars in the future. While they could craft some devastating weaponry, the enemy heavily outnumbered them. After the enemy had cut down hundreds of their kind, a group of Gnomes began researching and successfully creating a humanoid machine using elemental magic, the Warforged. The Leaders called all Gnomes to action - rip apart your tools, homes, and streets and build more Warforged! For the sake of their lives, they did as their Leaders told them, and very soon, they had built thousands upon thousands of Warforged, exploiting vast amounts of stored elemental magic to bring them to life. While the Gnomes scraped many together with spare parts, all had performed flawlessly. Their precision was more consistent, and their physical skills were far more capable than their creators.

After the War

After The Only War had ended, some of the Warforged were torn apart by the Gnomes. Before more followed, a group of Warforged and Gnome sympathizers believed that everyone should treat the Warforged not as objects but as caretakers and guardians. They convinced the masses to consider the 'souls' granted through the elemental magic required to make them intelligent beings. So, their Leaders decreed that the Warforged would continue to exist as loyal servants and protectors, and they would treat the Warforged as an equal, intelligent race. Since then, the Warforged have continued to faithfully aid the Gnomes in their technological endeavours and take on the menial tasks their modular bodies would better perform.

Centennia

Many Warforged went with the first Gnomes to help maintain the Flying City. Some guarded the streets of Centennia and would defend it from invaders if necessary. A very select few went to caretake for the Great Library at the center of the City. They catalogued any information brought to them there, for the Gnomes crave knowledge most. Unfortunately, the City met the unfortunate fate of falling from the sky at the hands of the demonic race of men, the Tieflings. Desecrated and ransacked of what knowledge remained, the Tieflings have rebuilt the City from the salvage into a visual cacophony of metal and dark magic that now stands in the center of a vast, once-beautiful landscape made barren by the Fall of Centennia.

After the Fall of Centennia

With Centennia lost, the Warforged either remained in the new City and were forced into serving the Tieflings or fled as far as they could from the region. Those that ran with their Gnome creators continued to help them. Few escaped of their own will, strangers to free will as they are, and either aimlessly roamed Keleran or found new masters. One could even walk through the monks' temples to the East and find Warforged serving teas or engaging in lessons and meditation.